It is warfare out there say besieged Afrikaners of Pretoria

Four armed robbers used 8-year-old Afrikaans farm boy , Juandré Reyneke, as a shield yesterday to lure a game farm owner from his homestead and shoot him down.

PRETORIA. - Afrikaans-language newspaper Beeld journalist Virginia Keppler reported how three armed robbers used the child, Juandré Reyneke as a shield with their only purpose to kill game-farm owner Kassie Cloete, 70.

Also notable in this event is the profound difference in which the Afrikaans-language news media and the English-language news media reported this very same story: Click here for the English-language news report.

The Afrikaans journalist reported that the child and his father, André, a professional hunter, were overpowered and assaulted at about 02:00 in their rondavel (thatched-roofed round cottage) on the game farm at Varkfontein near Cullinan, east of Pretoria. André, who is a diabetic, and his son were guests on the farm. "We were asleep. When I woke up, I saw someone pushing a pistol against my son's head," said André. "The next moment one (of them) hit me in the face with his fist and pulled me off the bed.

"They wanted money, access to the gun safe and firearms. My child became hysterical. "I talked to him to calm him down, but then they jumped on my head and back and kicked me in the ribs. "They also hit my son against the head with the pistol and slapped him in the face and on the chest,"André said. Then the robbers tied André and his son's hands and feet with boot laces.

One of the attackers stayed to guard the father while the other two dragged his son to the rondavel in which game-farm owner Kassie Cloete, 70, was sleeping. He told the journalist from his hospital bed the next day that he woke up when he heard the boy calling him from outside. "I went to the sliding door of my room and saw the child standing there. I asked him what was wrong and the next moment a man emerged from behind a wall and shot at me." He was hit twice, Cloete said. "I grabbed my pistol and fired a shot, and the robbers fled," Cloete said. But the attackers then dragged the terrified child along with them as a human shield - until they reached the farm gate.

Tried to cut off his ring finger:

His father said: "There they shouted at my child: 'Run or we'll shoot you,' but his feet were still tied...'

André said one of the armed men was just about to cut off his ring finger to get his ring when the game-farm owner fired the shot. "Then the robber stopped (carving at my finger) and ran outside. Even though the oom (Afrikaners often refer to elderly men such as Cloete as 'uncle' i.e. Oom) had managed to reach his weapon in time, he couldn't have shot the buggers because they were using my son as a shield." Juandré's mother took him for psychological counselling on Tuesday.

The robbers fled with André's pistol, two cellphones, R1,000 cash (and the apparatus he uses to measure his blood sugar. Police spokesman constable Johannes Jafta said one suspect had been arrested.

And this is how the same story was reported in the English-language news media:

Johannesburg - A man was shot on Tuesday as he exchanged fire with robbers at a lodge in Cullinan, Pretoria police said. Constable Sally Skhosana said the man was shot in the stomach and chest by four armed men who were robbing the Kenyaka Lodge in Varkfontein around 01:00. "The man resisted being searched by the robbers who were robbing all the guest houses at the lodge," said Skhosana. Police called to the scene managed to arrest one of the robbers and the other three escaped. The injured man was taken to a nearby hospital. The arrested man was charged with attempted murder and armed robbery and is expected to appear before the Cullinan Magistrate's Court soon.

AFRIKANERS ON PRETORIA SMALLHOLDINGS ARE UNDER SIEGE

This entire greater Pretoria / Kameeldrift / Cullinan area -- where traditionally, working-class Afrikaners often live on subsistence-survival agricultural holdings, is under siege by such armed gangs. On November 27 2008 - an Afrikaner lawyer was shot dead by gunmen from outside his homestead while sleeping in front of his TV on Nov 26 2008 - and many Afrikaners now are targetted by gunmen in a very similar way.

THIS IS NO ORDINARY CRIME WAVE...

"This is much more than just an ordinary crime wave," warns Institute for Security Studies senior researcher Dr Johan Burger, a former police commissioner. The entire smallholdings area of greater-Pretoria / Bronkhorstspruit / Cullinan / Kameeldrift have over the past few years become an unprecedented 'murder-site', he noted. These extremely violent armed attacks targeting all these Afrikaans smallholder-families have now reached very serious levels, he warned.

The besieged residents have held several protest meetings, demanding better policing, and describe these attacks as 'a genocide' which targets their ethnic-group. They plan lodging formal complaints with the United Nations. They also demand that the National Intelligence Agency instead of local police investigates these attacks because they have lost faith in the police's ability to defend them or investigate the crimes properly.

Over the past five years, the many tens of thousands of Afrikaner families living at these smallholdings in these regions surrounding greater Pretoria have increasingly barricaded themselves behind electrified fences, high security walls and living in a state of constant siege inside their heavily-secured homes. Often little of any real value is ever stolen during these attacks. The attackers invariably are large, heavily-armed black male gangs.

Burger warned:"This situation must be examined much more closely. This isn't just a matter of how some gangs are involved in these attacks - but also exactly what the police is doing pro actively to prevent all this. From the latest violent-crime statistics it is very clear that something is very wrong here in this specific smallholdings region,' he added. "These attacks have been going on for a long time and are now growing in intensity and viciousness - since 2001 these attacks on smallholders have doubled and that's an indication that something is badly wrong.' Thus far this year, at least 47 smallholders were killed in this region alone.

Head of criminal investigations division arrested for farm attacks with five colleagues:

Afrikaners who describe this as a genocide are not being paranoid: there is considerable evidence of police collusion in this attacks: besides the fact that police so frequently fail to respond to emergency calls from besieged Afrikaner families, on June 26, 2008 the SA police directorate also carried out a mass-arrest of the entire Police CID unit at the Magalies police station - which controls the greater-Pretoria smallholdings region. Police captain Patrick Magonono, and five colleagues were charged with carrying out armed robberies targetting Afrikaner smallholders throughout the region for the past five years. This case is still pending:

Three-hour siege of Legemar family - police took 13 hours to respond...

Picture: Job Legemar, 48, youngest children Cariene, 9 and Dieter 13 - recovering from the armed three hour siege by a large group of black gunmen which surrounded their homestead. While the family shot back and escaped unharmed, two of their guard dogs were shot dead and one dog also was poisoned before the well-planned attack by a very large gang. Picture: Beeld, Theana Calitz

On November 21, the Legemar family was surrounded inside their small Kameeldrift homestead by a gang of at least 10 young black men, all armed with AK47s. The family had already been awake all night because the dogs were barking constantly, they said. Three family members had time to position themselves in various rooms of the house, fighting back with their (only legally-allowed) handguns.

The family was under siege for three hours - and the police ignored their pleas for help throughout. The homestead was pockmarked with holes from 30 high-calibre bullets and all the windows were shot out, the Afrikaans journalist reported. The SA police insists on referring to such armed attacks of white-owned smallholdings and suburban homes as 'robberies', although often, no attempt is made to steal anything of real value: for instance the unlocked Legemar family car was parked inside the electrified perimeter-fence and there had been ample opportunity to steal it, yet it remained untouched. Also, the attackers had risked their lives by crawling beneath this dangerous fence, which is electrified with 20 strands, to get into the family compound. It took police 13 hours to respond to the family's pleas for help.

"It was warfare here last night. We are happy we are all still alive,' said Mrs Ineke Legemar, 47, after the siege on their homestead. The parents and their five children, Cor, 21, Willemien, 20, Petra, 16, Dieter, 13 and Cariene 9 had a miraculous escape, they all believe. And they also know it won't be the last time... such attackers often come back with reinforcements... "We believe they came here to kill us, it was a murder attack,' said Mr Legemar.

Neighbour Laetitia Prinsloo shot dead two nights before:

The Legemar family homestead is located only 3km from the heavily-barricaded home of Dr Duncan Prinsloo, 61, shot in his back and critically injured two nights earlier during an identical armed attack in which his wife Laetitia, 54, was shot dead.

By December 2 2008 - a total of 3,020 white rural Afrikaners have been murdered in an identical manner since 1994, according to the commercial farming associations Agri-SA and the Transvaal Agricultural Union.

Only sleep two hours a night... We live in utter fear here...

A neighbour of Dr Prinsloo of Vaalbank, whose wife Laetitia was shot dead last week, said: "I only sleep about two hours each night now Each little sound has me get up to check if anything is wrong. "We live in utter fear here - but we have no place else to flee to. I don't want to run away...'

Police took two hours to show up... Prinsloo son:

The attacked Prinsloo couple's grieving son, Prinsloo jr. said: "The police are not getting this under control, so the only thing we can now start doing is to take the law into our own hands, start taking care of our own defence,' said Dr Frans Prinsloo junior of Vaalbank. "We can't go on living like this. They are murdering all of us at this going rate.' He said he also was 'bitterly angry' about the very poor reaction time of the police when his parents were gunned down. He phoned 10111 at once after getting their emergency call. It took him a full half-an-hour to explain to the people at the police switchboard how to get to his parents' smallholding... 'Police officers should have knowledge of their patrol areas - but it took then them a full two hours to finally show up.'

On November 26, 2008, Beeld journalist Gloria Edwards reported that a Benoni family had just decided against emigration to the UK -- because "South Africa was so lekker (nice)" -- when they were attacked and their breadwinner murdered. Afrikaner lawyer Peter Moodie, 36, father of two small children, was shot dead while he was asleep in front of the TV in his home in Honibal Street, Rynfield in the working-class area of Benoni near Johannesburg. All the valuables in the house were left untouched - only his cellphone was robbed.

His widow Beulah, 35, and the children Connor, 7 and Morgan, 4, were asleep in their bedrooms and apparently didn't hear any shots. A pillow was apparently used to muffle the sound, said police constable Godin Nyathi. Of course no-one was arrested. Mrs Moodie said she woke up when she heard her husband scream in Afrikaans: "I will kill you, I will kill you...'

"I ran to him and found him on the floor next to the bar. He did not respond to my calls but was breathing. "Initially I thought he'd fainted or was stabbed, because I saw no blood. Then I saw the gunshot wound in his belly and picked feathers from the pillow he was holding. They must have shot him through the pillow.' She suspects that he chased the attackers from the house and then collapsed at the bar in the living room. "He wanted to protect us,' she said. He died on the scene. He worked in the steel industry.She said her husband liked watching TV until late at night and falling asleep on the couch.Two months ago the couple decided not to emigrate. "We were determined to emigrate to the UK, but then we decided against it because we thought things were too 'lekker' in South Africa."And now look what has happened.

"Crime isn't just crime any more, it's pure malice. They come armed just to kill you in your sleep, for no reason at all,' she said.

Opposition MP John Goodall 'angry' after attack at Bedfordview home - shot missed his son, visiting from UK

Beeld journalist Cobus Coetzee reported on November 21 2008 that Democratic-Alliance parliamentarian Brian Goodall was attacked with his family in their home at the East Rand a day earlier. His son Peter-John and daughter-in-law Jessica were visiting from the UK at the time. It was Jessica's first time in SA and she was already talking about wanting to move here,' he said. ( estrasnd@democratic-alliance.co.za ) "I doubt if she'll still feel this way after this experience...' he added.

Goodall's party demands voting rights for 1,5-million South Africans abroad:

His party had just announced that it was lodging a formal complaint with the Independent Electoral Commission, demanding that South Africans abroad be given voting rights through the foreign embassies during the forthcoming presidential elections. Both the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front Plus - mostly representing Afrikaners -- would benefit greatly if South Africans abroad could vote. At the previous election, only the foreign affairs officers and their families could cast their votes - all the other self-exiled South Africans were denied all voting rights at the embassies .

By this year, there are at least 1,5-million mostly 'white' South Africans disenfranchised -- all people who had to emigrate to find jobs mainly due to the ANC-government's anti-white hiring laws. Under the much-praised non-racial SA Constitution, all South Africans must be given fair access to the right to vote.

"I am angry" - Goodall: About the attack at his family home last night, Goodall said: "One keeps on believing that you will only read in the newspapers about such crimes, but now we feel very unsafe inside our own home, and I am angry,' he said.

Five armed black men in their early twenties broke into their home at around 2:45 am after climbing across the rear wall, cutting off the burglar bars in the dining room and breaking in. They were armed with two handguns, and forced Goodall and wife Lesley into their bedroom, ordering them to lie down on their stomachs with their faces to the floor.

Shot fired at son: Meanwhile Peter-John and his wife had heard the commotion and started walking downstairs from the second floor bedroom. "When my son walked down the wooden stairs, one of the armed men shot at Peter-John. The shot missed my son, hitting the stairs,' Goodall said. The four were tied up with their hands behind their backs for about half-an-hour. The five men stole stole all their passports, cellphones, bank cards and an unknown amount of cash. The Goodalls have lived in the same house for the past 34 years. The last break-in was 15 years ago.

Police spokeswoman Nhlanhla Makoba claims that they are 'investigating a complaint of housebreaking'. She said nothing about the attempted murder charge which should also be investigated since a shot was fired at Mr Peter-John Goodall.